


i have loved the stars too fondly (to be fearful of the night)

by cl410



Series: Legacy [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: (Jane's father & the Seelie Queen), Backstory, Character Study, Fae Jane Foster, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Magic, just referenced, nothign explicit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-29
Updated: 2018-07-29
Packaged: 2019-06-18 00:46:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15473787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cl410/pseuds/cl410
Summary: Jane Foster knew what it meant to be alone.





	i have loved the stars too fondly (to be fearful of the night)

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little tiny bit of Jane's backstory... It's kinda sad and lonely, but this is all in the past now! Darcy's not letting her newfound friend out of her sight any time soon. 
> 
> Props to Eldritchhousekeeper for totally nailing how Jane's father broke the enthrallment!

Moon dust in your lungs, 

stars in your eyes, 

you are a child of the cosmos, 

a ruler of the skies.

\- Emma Roeske, _You Are Here_

~*~

Jane Foster knew what it was to be alone. It defined every aspect of her life- her childhood, adulthood, her distracted thoughts of the future.

Jane’s father had loved her, Jane knew for a fact. But she’d only ever known the man left half-enthralled by an explosively powerful Fae Queen. A Queen who’d been only briefly intrigued by the gentle man with an iron will, until the enthrallment began poisoning his mind and he was dismissed along with the other enslaved humans.

The Seelie Queen, for some reason unknown to Jane, hadn’t killed Jane immediately after her birth- immediately after Jane’s inherited power would have been evident. Maybe the Queen assumed she’d have years to mold Jane however she wished, to shatter and reforge her daughter’s soul at a whim.

Jane’s father, however, threw a wrench in the Queen’s plans. Humans were unpredictable creatures and the Fae were far too arrogant to consider their prey’s strength, their clever minds and determination- especially once they’d already been caught.

But Jane’s gift with glamor manifested early- early enough that the first time her father laid eyes on the small baby girl the Queen’s enthrallment fractured enough that he stole Jane hours later and escaped through a small, unnoticed Fae gate that closed behind him seconds after he stumbled to safety.

He raised her as best he could, though the enthrallment’s sickening grasp never left him completely. Not even Jane’s magic could break that spell, even with her affinity for glamor and magic.

He fought the enthrallment for years. Jane watched him battle with magic not of his world day in and day out. She learned to discern when he needed help, or her small hand to guide him back to the present and away from the lure of magic still twisting sickly inside his mind. He died her first year of college, whittled away by the Fae enchantment hooked like barbs underneath his skin. He left her their small house, enough money to pay for undergrad, and his love of the stars.

She inherited other things, from both parents. An iron will. An almost-inhuman tenacity, a driving faith behind her belief of the universe beyond them. A magic not of this world- magic from the world beside this one; magic so overwhelming sometimes it was all she could do not to fly apart at the seams, to scatter like the stars she loved so dearly.

Her father’s friend, confidant, and sometimes lover helped her through the first few months of numbness. Erik Selvig knew nothing for certain, just had an inkling that something was different with her. Jane faced no judgement from him, no prying questions; he simply offered his distant support through her years of school. But Jane remembered the arguments between Erik and her father. The raised voices, heated discussions on what was possible and what was not. Things her father knew for certain (from traumatic first-hand experience) but had no way to prove.

Jane’s father died and she buried herself in her work, never contemplating how quiet, how lonely her life was. Jane didn’t know any different. She looked instead to the stars, as she had her whole life.

The Seelie Queen enthralled her father, and Jane was an offshoot of them both. Fae magic and her father’s love of the stars fused, twisted through Jane like a star burning in her soul. Possibilities brushed against the edges of her mind like an eager, affectionate cat. Realms and dimensions so beyond them all that Jane spent half of her life chasing one thought after another of all the maybes-could be’s-what if’s of the world.

“That girl’s got her head in the clouds,” Jane’s early teachers sniffed.

“And your eyes on the stars, my love,” her father would remind her with a gentle tap under her chin.

Jane Foster decided at age twelve that she was going to bridge the gap between magic and science. She’d learned by then how to manage her magic, the glamor and illusions, even the Fae gates. She’d also learned to ignore the scorn of other students, teachers, humans, and supernaturals. No one else knew what she knew, no one else could feel what Jane felt. She’d prove them all wrong, one day.

~*~

Jane was old friends with loneliness. She’d quietly accepted it as her lot in life, resigned herself to proving the impossible to world full of derisive humans and supernaturals alike. That is, until a spark stumbled into her office, an alien prince fell out of the sky, and Jane’s world turned upside down with an entirely new set of possibilities.


End file.
